The Claudia Visitation
by Ejays17
Summary: Claudia visits Warehouse 12 in pursuit of Pinocchio. Season 2 spoilers  probably


**Warehouse 13: The Claudia Visitation**

"Booring!" Claudia Donovan sang as she floated past the stacks in the giant hangar that was Warehouse 13 (a repository for every magical and scientifically advanced object ever collected in the history of earth, and possibly a few other planets), the teenager slowed the magic carpet down slightly to admire her reflection in a passing mirror, and to check if the shade of blue she had dyed one of her reddish brown locks was exactly what she had been aiming for. She looked around guiltily after doing this. Mirrors were one of the many things you had to be careful about in the Warehouse, very little in the cavernous building was as innocuous as it appeared to be at first glance. Mirrors were particularly dangerous. Heaven forbid she accidentally gaze into Lewis Carroll's looking glass, that could result in transporting her to another world entirely. Claudia's current world was odd enough, she didn't need to complicate it by going somewhere even stranger.

"Grounded," she said to herself, steering the carpet around a tight turn, "what nineteen year old gets grounded in this day and age? Artie isn't even my Dad, how can he ground me?" Grounding in the remote corner of South Dakota that housed Warehouse 13 wasn't really that big a deal, it wasn't like there was anywhere fun for a teenager to go hang out anyway, it was just the sheer injustice of it all. Not that long ago Claudia had been granted apprentice agent status, she'd even accompanied the warehouse's two resident agents - Peter 'Pete' Lattimer and Myka Bering - on cases trying to track down more artifacts to store safely in the Warehouse, and prevent them from either affecting an innocent population, or falling into the wrong hands, now she was being treated like a 12 year old and effectively sent to her room. The thing with the cookies was not her fault, if Pete didn't have a habit of just grabbing anything that looked like food and shoving it into his mouth then the whole incident would never have happened. Pete wouldn't have been briefly hospitalised. Myka wouldn't have lost her memory and no one would have shot Artie in the behind. Despite the mess it had all caused Claudia had to stifle a giggle remembering Myka shooting Artie in the backside, it was such a big target it wasn't like she could miss, and it was only a BB gun. Somehow Arthur 'Artie' Nielsen; the Warehouse's director and Claudia's sort of guardian, had not seen the funny side of everything, probably because he hadn't been able to eat sitting down for three days. Claudia had initially asked how long she was grounded for, but beat a hasty retreat and cut her losses when Artie bellowed 'For the rest of your life!' Although Claudia would never admit it under pain of death she was kind of pleased that Artie cared enough to even ground her. The quirky and frequently grumpy former cryptographer was the closest thing that the young techno-whiz had to a father ever since her older brother Joshua had died due to a failed Warehouse experiment.

"Whoa, carpet, whoa!" Claudia said gently as she entered the British 19th century section of the Warehouse. The fact that the carpet drew to a gentle halt, and lowered slowly, allowing the girl to step off pleased her. It meant that she had at least grabbed the right carpet.

They had 5 flying carpets in the Warehouse, they were 'spelled' differently according to the weave. Claudia's responded to the command of 'whoa' to stop. The girl had lifted the command from one of Pete's old Warner Bros cartoons. An Arabian version of Yosemite Sam used it to get his camel to stop, but Claudia's carpet actually obeyed the order, unlike Sam's camel, he had to jump off it and bash it over the head with the butt of his rifle before it stopped running. Once Claudia was standing on the Warehouse's concrete floor, the carpet bobbed up and down briefly, and then rolled itself up and stood propped neatly against one of the shelves. Claudia grinned. Artie didn't like the carpets, she and Pete thought they were fun, Myka and Leena (the young woman who worked at the Warehouse and ran the B&B that the staff lived in) were at best wary of the flying artifacts. Claudia found them a remarkably effective and enjoyable way to navigate the Warehouse. It looked big from the outside, but it was infinitely bigger once you came through the hangar doors, some parts of it literally had no end.

Claudia looked at the endless shelves surrounding her and wrinkled her nose. She had never really liked the 19th century British section of the Warehouse. In keeping with the weather of the land most of the artifacts had come from, it was rather gloomy and cold. If one had to be grounded, and Claudia could think of NO reason why any nineteen year old should ever be grounded, but if one HAD to be, then there were worse places than the Warehouse to serve said grounding. There was always plenty to do and it was usually interesting, although the teenager preferred to spend her time on the computers in the office, rather than wandering around the shelves cataloguing. Claudia actually had an idea for a computer program that would allow them to do the cataloguing remotely. Artie wasn't keen on it, he claimed that Claudia was wasting her time, and that no program could ever replace the old fashioned manual way of doing things. The girl shook her head and grinned, at times for someone who needed to work with various forms of technology, Artie could be a bit of a luddite.

At that moment Claudia frowned and blew an exasperated breath out, which made the blue lock of hair bounce up and flop back down again. A light up above her was flickering, like it wasn't already dark enough down here. If the light blew then there was one guess as to who would have to fix it. They could never let a civilian electrician down here, Artie and his formidable boss Mrs Frederic wouldn't even trust a government one in the Warehouse. Claudia would be the one schlepping up a ladder, checking the fitting and replacing the tube. She was the only one who had the technical aptitude. Seriously she should be able to teach this stuff to Pete. How hard could it be to change a light tube, even a possibly magical one? Shielding her eyes from the light, Claudia put her clipboard over her eyes so she could get a better look at it. Good! The light had stabilized again, she was about to get back to the work at hand when she heard what sounded like a childish giggle. Ordinarily laughing children wouldn't bother Claudia, she quite liked children, she had been one herself once, but this was the Warehouse. Things were never as they looked…uhhhh…sounded. What were kids doing in the Warehouse anyway? There were only 5 people who were meant to be in here and none of them were children.

Claudia listened hard, but couldn't hear any more noises, so put it down to her imagination playing tricks on her. This whole section spooked her. She looked up at the light again and caught sight of a hat poking over the edge of the stack. The teenager was no milliner, but there was no way that the hat she just saw was 19th century British. It had a distinctly Robin Hoodish look about it. Claudia swore under her breath. There was always a problem with myths and legends like Robin Hood that could have existed in more than one time. The Robin Hood legend, depending on which version of it you wanted to believe, could place the outlaw at any time from the 11th century to the 14th. Things like that always caused huge arguments with Artie, Myka could usually step in and solve them, she grew up in a bookstore and carried a lot of useful knowledge around with her.

Letting out a huffy breath of annoyance Claudia climbed the ladder to the top of the stack. To her surprise it wasn't a Robin Hoodish hat that she'd seen, it belonged to a puppet, a puppet of a child. Claudia picked up the marionette and examined it. Pinocchio. She hadn't even known they had the mischievous puppet in the Warehouse, then again they had a lot of things in the Warehouse that people, including staff like her, didn't know about. "I may not be the Warehouse's resident expert on 19th century British artifacts, but you my little friend are Italian, not English. How did you get here, anyway?"

To Claudia's surprise a childish voice piped at her "A big bird picked me up and dropped me there. I didn't climb up at all."

Claudia kept her grip on the puppet, but looked at it hard, its nose immediately grew an inch as it spoke. "You climbed up, huh?"

Pinocchio shook his head vociferously, his nose grew more.

"Look kid, you have an enchantment on you that makes your nose grow every time you lie. I don't really care how you got there, but I have to take you back to where you belong."

For whatever reason Pinocchio wasn't keen on going back to his spot on the shelves, and he struggled vigorously in Claudia's arms.

"Damnit!" she said loudly. "Would you quit that?"

The light above her chose that moment to blow. Claudia shook her head, the blue lock flashing "I do not believe this!"

The girl let go of the puppet with one hand as she reached for the flashlight clipped onto her belt. Pinocchio took the opportunity to kick his captor. Claudia yelped as a wooden clog struck her in the thigh, she let go off her struggling prisoner. The marionette hit the ground running, and took off.

"Hey!" Claudia shouted, flicking on the flashlight, and taking off in pursuit. "Come back here!"

The thought of what Artie would do to her if she lost an artifact kept Claudia's feet moving after the annoying puppet. Just as bad would be the shame if she couldn't apprehend Pinocchio and had to enlist help from either Pete or Myka to find and put him back where he belonged. The girl grit her teeth, and growled, for someone with little legs the Italian puppet sure could run fast. "Come back here you little liar!" she bellowed. "I'm gonna get Hiawatha's tomahawk and chop you into kindling!" The moment the words left Claudia's lips she regretted them. Threats rarely worked with children, they hadn't with her. "Yeah, way to go Donovan," she scolded herself, "that'll really make him stop running away from you."

Pinocchio wasn't really paying any attention to where he was going, it was doubtful that he could read the signs or if he cared anyway. Claudia groaned as she realized he had entered WW 2. It was one of the largest and most crowded sections of Warehouse 13, it was also one of the most dangerous. However the girl was gaining on Pinocchio. "I'm so out of shape," she gasped, "maybe I should start jogging with Pete." Pinocchio ran on, and then his small form was briefly eclipsed by a blinding light. "What the…?" Claudia murmured, dazzled by the flash of light. What had he gone into? It really didn't matter, she had to follow him. There was no going back now, not empty-handed. Claudia put on a burst of speed and ran towards the blazing lights, as she entered she had just enough time to read the large label above the area: The Philadelphia Experiment. "No way! This cannot be happening!"

Claudia kept her eyes shut tight for the dizzying journey through time. Part of the problem with time travel was that they didn't know much about it. H.G Wells, who had worked at Warehouse 13 for a time, until she showed her true colours, and tried to set off an earthquake that would have destroyed most of the continent of North America, may have known more about it than anyone else, after all the woman had invented a time machine. Where did you go? Backwards or forwards? Was it even possible to travel to some time that hadn't actually taken place yet? Did you travel through time AND space? Did you land in the same reality you left from? If you went back in time how did you prevent yourself from significantly impacting the future? These questions and more were still whirling around in Claudia Donovan's mind when her journey was brought to an abrupt halt by a heavy impact with a solid surface.

"Ow!" the nineteen year old squealed as her hip contacted with rough stone. She opened her eyes and got to her feet rubbing her abused hip, that was going to bruise, no doubt about it. Where and when was she, and had the annoying little puppet come to the same time? She was in a gloomy, but cavernous space. She got the impression she was underground and possibly even under water, so definitely not the Warehouse. Claudia sighed "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto." She kind of wished she had a feisty little canine companion with her, this place gave her the creeps.

As the girl's eyes adjusted to the surroundings she realized that she was in some sort of storage area, just like a…warehouse. Oh God! She thought. I'm in a warehouse, one of THE Warehouses. Which one? Pete and Myka had gone to Warehouse 2 in Egypt not that long ago, and it had nearly killed them. Just because you worked in a Warehouse did not mean you were equipped to handle another one. Claudia jumped as a quavering male voice challenged her.

"Identify yourself madam!"

"Identify yourself!" she retorted back as she assessed her challenger. He was young, maybe a few years her senior, tall and slim. He was dressed like something out of a Charles Dickens novel, he was hatless, which gave her a view of a mop of lustrous curly brown hair, he also wore round rimmed spectacles and carried an umbrella. His mode of dress sorted out when she was, sometime in the 19th century, his accent was plummy upper class England, so that indicated that she was in Great Britain, although during the reign of Queen Victoria the British had colonized large chunks of the world, so she couldn't make that assumption just yet. Just where she was had an English feel to it, as Claudia had never been to England, she couldn't tell anyone why she felt that way about her surroundings, she just did.

Claudia made to return the flashlight to her belt, the gas lamps around the interior of the building made it no longer of any use, and she wanted to conserve the battery power, presuming 21st century batteries even worked in this time period. "Stop right there, madam!" the young man barked, pointing an object in his hand at her.

Claudia's eyes narrowed as she focused on what was in curlytop's hand. It was a pen, an old-fashioned fountain pen. Claudia burst out laughing, which seemed to disconcert the man. "What are you going to do with that?" she taunted, "Squirt me to death?"

The eyes behind the spectacles darkened and he snapped back "This may look like a fountain pen to you, but it is in fact a small high powered pistol."

Claudia was intrigued, despite herself, now "There's a gun in that?" she asked.

"You're American, aren't you?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Your manner of speech and only an American would call a pistol, a gun. To answer your question, yes this is a pistol," his voice took on a note of pride as he added, "it's of my own invention."

That clinched it for Claudia. The Philadelphia Experiment in Warehouse 13 had transported her backwards through both time and space in pursuit of Pinocchio, and she was in Warehouse 12, which had been located somewhere in 19th century London.

"Look," Claudia tried to explain, "I'd love to stand around and compare notes, but did you happen to see a puppet run past you?"

"A puppet? What nonsense are you…"

"A specific puppet," Claudia cut him off, "Pinocchio."

"The Italian children's story?"

"Italian, yes, story not so much. Did you see him?"

"No, but I…"

"Damn! He can't have gotten too far, look if we both split up I'm sure one of us can find him in here somewhere."

"We'll do nothing of the sort! You're going to come with me and we're going to sort out who you are and what you're doing here. I don't believe this Pinocchio story for a second." He motioned at her menacingly with his pen.

Claudia sighed and frowned, she was really between a rock and a hard place here. If that thing in his hand really was a gu…sorry pistol, then she was at a disadvantage, and to be honest he was kind of cute in a nerdy sort of way. "You really know how to sweet talk a girl." Claudia said to him as she let him direct her with his pistol pen pointed at her back.

Claudia was ushered into a small cluttered office, and told to take a seat behind a desk that was somewhat neater than the rest of the office. She knew that would have to belong to her captor, it did not surprise that he was a bit of a neat freak. Claudia was more used to mess, the only person she really knew who was into being neat and tidy was Leena.

The young man produced a form from somewhere, shook his pen and started writing on the form. Claudia's eyes widened, and she asked "So it writes as well as shoots?"

"Something like that." He muttered, his cheeks reddening.

"You played me!" the girl exclaimed.

"If that means I managed to suggest to you that my fountain pen is something more than it really is, then yes. It is however an excellent idea and I will need to work on it. Name?"

Claudia sat back and sighed "Marie Curie."

Claudia had to hold back a laugh as the young man dutifully wrote down the name of the dual Nobel prize winner down on his form.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"I am Agent Penrose-Smythe." He answered in his plummy tones.

"Do you have a first name?"

"Victor."

"As in Frankenstein?" She followed up with a raised eyebrow.

"My mother was quite taken with the work of Mary Shelley."

"Where do you reside?" Victor asked, becoming all business again.

"Disneyland." Claudia drawled.

"I assume you can provide documented proof this, Miss Curie?" Victor said, starting to work out he was being lied to.

Claudia sighed "Victor you seem like a nice guy, and I'm in a hurry, so I'm going to level with you. My real name is Claudia Donovan and I'm from the future, the 21st century to be more exact. I work for a United States government organization known as Warehouse 13," seeing Victor's eyebrows climbing into his curly thatch, she started to explain. "The Warehouse was moved to the United States early in the 20th century. I fell through a time travelling experiment when running after Pinocchio, now I have to get him back and try to get back to my time or Artie; my boss, will kill me."

"How is this Artie going to kill you if you if you're out of your own time?"

"Oh believe me, he'll find a way." Claudia assured the Warehouse agent.

"Time travel?" Victor asked. "What did you use?"

"I can't just let you know everything about the future, it's dangerous Victor. It was an experiment by my government that didn't quite work out, so we put it in the Warehouse. Pinocchio, the little rat, ran through it and I followed. I didn't realize what I'd walked into until it was too late."

Victor's lips pursed, and he tapped the end of his pen against his cheek in an unconscious habit of thought "This is most irregular." He said as if what had happened to Claudia was some sort of daily inconvenience.

In an effort to bring him back to the now, Claudia spoke "After we get Pinocchio back, he's probably stuck in your Warehouse, can't we fire up H.G Wells' time machine and send me back?"

Victor looked at the teenage agent "Wells?" he asked. "Agent Wells?"

Claudia became worried "She works here?"

"Yes."

Oh crap! The tall dark haired former Warehouse agent was not someone she wanted to see. She wouldn't know about what she'd done because it hadn't happened yet, but the H.G Wells that Claudia knew was evil and she wasn't entirely convinced that she hadn't always been that way.

"Do you know Agent Wells?"

"Sort of. She's evil." Claudia said quickly.

"Evil?" Victor asked, eyebrows raising again.

"Take my word for it, don't trust her."

"I don't intend to after what you just said about a time machine."

"She's invented it already?"

Victor sighed "A time machine of sorts does exist, but I can assure you that it is NOT Agent Wells' invention. It is mine!"

"Does it work?" Claudia asked Victor as they walked cautiously through the Warehouse in search of the lying puppet.

"My time machine?"

"Yeah."

Victor shrugged "I haven't tested it, but my theory is sound, so it should. I'd like to know how I can get one of these flashlight inventions, they are amazing, less dangerous and far more convenient than either a candle or a lantern."

Claudia had given Agent Penrose-Smythe her battery operated torch and he had fallen in love with the everyday future item.

"You should still be around when they invent them." She told the young British agent.

"Halt!" Penrose-Smythe commanded and Claudia nearly ran into the back of him, she hadn't been paying much attention to where they were going, as most of hers was diverted by the artifacts they were going past. She knew they had to have most of them in her Warehouse, but she hadn't seen them before. Artie would love this place, in fact so would Myka, Pete not so much. "This is a dangerous area," Victor said in hushed tones, sweeping the beam of the flashlight around it to illuminate the section, Claudia couldn't see much difference, but this was the phlegmatic Englishman's turf, not hers. She watched in amusement as he lifted his umbrella and opened it.

"Is it gonna rain on us?" Claudia asked, cheekily.

Victor gave her a withering glare "This is to protect us."

"How?"

"The canopy is bulletproof."

"Another one of yours?"

"Of course. Follow closely and stay behind the umbrella."

Feeling a little silly Claudia did as Victor instructed her, and tried to keep as much of her body as she could behind the umbrella. This made her press closely to the young British agent, which Claudia really didn't mind as much as she may have thought she would. He really was rather cute.

"Your hair?" Victor asked as they cautiously moved deeper into the Warehouse's cavernous depths.

"What about it?" Claudia asked sharply, she was sensitive about her hair, the colours she regularly dyed strands was something she got teased about.

"Does everyone in the future have multi-coloured hair?" Victor asked, his tone respectful, he had picked up on the girl's irritation.

Claudia laughed delightedly and replied "Not everyone, no. That's a Claudia Donovan thing."

"It's rather fetching." Victor murmured, glad that the gloom of the Warehouse hid the blush he could feel on his cheeks.

"Red hat at two o'clock!" Claudia alerted Victor, as her keen eyes caught the bobbing feather on Pinocchio's pointed cap.

Victor swung in the direction Claudia had indicated and they zeroed in on the unsuspecting puppet. Unexpectedly Victor sneezed, he was still fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief when Pinocchio's head snapped up and he turned. He sprang to his feet and started running.

"I told you he was sneaky!" Claudia scolded Victor as she went after the runaway marionette.

"Stay behind the umbrella!" Victor warned.

"He's not armed, he's just obnoxious!" Claudia shot back and then yelped as a projectile of some sort flung by the puppet narrowly missed her.

She ducked behind the umbrella, and objects thrown by Pinocchio bounced harmlessly off its bulletproof surface. "That's a nice bit of engineering you've got there, Penrose-Smythe." Claudia complimented the British agent.

"Thank you, I'd rather we caught him before he does too much damage, though. He's throwing artifacts at us!"

Behind the umbrella Claudia and her companion managed to close on Pinocchio, who seemed at a loss to understand why his barrage wasn't getting through to them. He tried running past them, but Victor moved quickly, stuck out a foot, and Pinocchio sprawled on the floor. "Ouch! That hurts! You've wounded me, you bully!" the puppet protested loudly.

"You're made out of wood." Claudia pointed out. "I don't think you can bruise, kid."

"You can damage the grain," Pinocchio countered, as he allowed the girl to help him up, "I'm made of a very special wood."

"Yeah, cry me a river." Claudia answered. "You're coming back with me."

By the time the two arrived back at the office Victor shared with H.G Wells, they had been kicked and hit, Victor came very close to being bitten, although as he said one advantage to being bitten by a wooden marionette was that he would be unlikely to get any disease, that was until Claudia pointed out he may not catch rabies or some other disease communicable by biting, but he could get splinters. That further enraged Pinocchio. Claudia struggled to hold the angry little puppet, and Victor rummaged around in his desk drawer.

"What are you doing?" she demanded, dodging and ducking to avoid Pinocchio's fists and feet.

"Looking for…" Victor muttered and then shouted "Got it!" his hands were holding a length of rope and an oddly shaped musical instrument, rather like a pregnant recorder.

"Rope's unlikely to hold him, Victor. How are we going to get him to hold still long enough to tie him up? And the music only works with animals, not lumps of wood."

"Lumps of wood!" Pinocchio screamed. "I'll give you lumps of wood!" and he desperately tried to head butt the girl.

"No, you do not understand, Claudia." Victor told her. "This is not any length of rope. It's Indian hemp."

"It may be stronger than most rope, but it's still rope."

"Not if you use the pungi," Victor explained, holding up the oddly shaped flute, "Agent Kipling brought both the rope and the pungi back from one of his missions in the subcontinent."

"Kipling?" Claudia gasped. "You mean Rudyard Kipling? Are there any 19th century British writers who weren't Warehouse Agents?"

"Byron wasn't, but Agent Austen was very useful when it came to the matters involving zombies. Hold our little friend down," there was a particularly violent stream of profanities from Pinocchio at that, "My!" Victor exclaimed. "Someone's mother should have used soap and water on their mouth."

He held the rope in one hand and began to play the instrument he had called a pungi with the other. The rope seemed to move independently in his hand, Victor dropped it and Claudia stepped back. She watched as the rope wrapped itself around Pinocchio's wildly thrashing limbs until he was trussed hand and foot. "We probably should gag him, too." Victor suggested as Pinocchio continued to swear and scream threats at the two agents.

Claudia nodded and Victor competently used his handkerchief to muffle the puppet's mouth and give them some peace and quiet.

Claudia propped the bound and gagged puppet up on a chair and gave him a look of smug satisfaction.

"Well," Victor said, "I could use a spot of tea. How do you take it, Claudia?"

Startled eyes looked at the dapper Englishman.

Realising how he had phrased the initially innocent request, Victor blushed and stammered "I…ummm…that is…to say…"

Claudia came to his rescue by saying "Tea would be neat, but I also have to get back to my Warehouse. You said something about a time machine earlier."

A line of perspiration broke out along Victor's hairline and he looked uncomfortable. "It's really only a prototype. It hasn't been tested."

Claudia shrugged "Neither had the Philadelphia Project and that got me and our little wooden friend here."

"Very well, come with me. Bring the foul mouthed marionette with you."

"You're kidding, right?" Claudia asked Victor, looking dubiously at the contraption in front of her.

"No, I do not believe I am. What is wrong with it?"

"It's a penny farthing bicycle."

Victor nodded "They're a fine machine. Simple in design, light, fast…"

"Dangerous. Where do I sit?" Claudia snapped.

"That is a bit of a poser. I had not considered the likelihood of a passenger. You could sit on the handlebars."

"What?" Claudia yelped. "How will you see where you're going?"

"It works with my little sister when I give her joyrides, admittedly she is six years old, so smaller than you."

"This is it, isn't it?" Claudia asked.

"I am afraid so," Victor admitted, he brightened a little, "the lack of vision shouldn't be an issue, though, as we're not really going anywhere, rather an anywhen."

"We still have to get to the Warehouse in South Dakota, which if I'm not mistaken is a long way from London, Victor."

The Englishman waved his hand "That's just a matter of calibrating the setting to when and where." He removed a gauge of some sort from his pocket, which to Claudia seemed to be the Victorian equivalent of a modern lady's handbag and held all manner of things in a relatively small area. Victor attached the gauge to the penny farthing's outside front wheel and began to fiddle with some of the settings, asking Claudia when she had left the Warehouse, time, date and some information about it's exact location. It didn't have an address as such, but fortunately Claudia was in possession of more intimate and accurate locational information such as the exact latitude and longitude of the giant repository.

"Well, that should do the trick." Victor said, standing up and slapping his hands together to rid them of any dust or dirt that fixing the calibrator onto the bicycle's outsized front wheel may have deposited on them.

Claudia picked up the tightly bound Pinocchio, who was still attempting to speak through his handkerchief gag, and eyed the penny farthing doubtfully.

"Shall we go, Agent Donovan?" Victor invited, indicating his most unusual time travelling machine.

It took some maneuvering and a few tries before Claudia could seat herself firmly, if not entirely comfortably on the handlebars of the penny farthing. "The things I do in the name of science and research." she muttered as Victor got himself into the saddle.

"Into the void, eh?" he said cheerfully and started to pedal.

Claudia's answer was a howl of terror as the bicycle became airborne and was swept into the whirling maelstrom of the time stream.

The journey through the Philadelphia Experiment to the late 19th century had been so quick and Claudia's mind had been so occupied at the time that she hadn't really looked around. This time it took longer and she had to keep one hand on Pinocchio, whose wooden eyes were rolling around wildly in his head, and the other was on the handlebars so that she didn't fall off. This was really a trip on white knuckle airlines. Claudia did flick eyes either side of the penny farthing and could see nothing more than rushing white ribbons of light, it actually freaked her out a little, so she shut her eyes tight. She kept them closed, and concentrated on holding her balance, until she heard Victor shout "I think we're almost there, Claudia."

"Oh thank God!" Claudia breathed, she cracked her eyes open reluctantly, to see the interior of the Warehouse beneath her. The bicycle glided down smoothly and touched down on the solid concrete floor. Claudia heaved a huge sigh of relief, and very nearly fell off the machine as soon as it came to a complete stop. Victor assisted her to a standing position and looked wide-eyed around him at the surrounds of the Warehouse. "Oh!" he exclaimed.

Claudia put the puppet that had caused all the trouble down and looked at Victor. Alarm bells went off in her head. She was pretty certain he wasn't meant to know about any of what he was seeing. She was sure she'd read something about people from the past not being allowed to see things in the future. It never ended well.

"Uhhhh Victor," Claudia said rather hesitantly.

The young man tore his eyes away from the shelves, and the interior of the Warehouse as it stretched into the distance.

"Yes!"

"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but you're from the past and this is the future…"

"Oh, of course." Victor replied, his tone tinged with regret. "I'll just recalibrate the old bike, and be on my way."

Claudia looked on sadly as he made the adjustments, and swiped angrily at her eyes. She wasn't crying, it was just the speed at which they'd travelled through time, it had torn at her eyes and made them water.

"Well, Miss Donovan," Victor said in businesslike tones, standing up and putting his hand out, "it has been a pleasure. I wish you luck with your career."

Claudia ignored the outstretched hand and instead planted a kiss on a surprised Victor's cheek.

"You modern girls are very forward I must say." Victor said, standing back and blushing furiously.

"I enjoyed working with you, too. Watch out for H.G."

Claudia stood back, and watched Victor pedal away vigorously, the penny farthing took off down the seemingly endless lines between the racks and then disappeared.

"What do you think you're doing?" a loud voice hailed the girl.

Claudia turned to see an obviously agitated Artie Nielsen striding towards her in his typically busy manner.

"I was…" Claudia tried to explain.

"I can see what you were doing. Lollygagging! Why have you got Pinocchio? He doesn't belong in this section. Were you playing with him?"

Affronted Claudia barked back "No, I wasn't playing with him! I'm not a child, Artie."

"I wonder sometimes." Artie muttered, taking Pinocchio from Claudia's arms. "Get back to work cataloguing." He told her as he removed the gag from Pinocchio's mouth, and started off to replace him in the correct section. Claudia watched and heard the puppet saying in his high-pitched childlike voice "That girl took me through time and brought some Englishman here. I think he's her boyfriend."

"Stop lying." Artie growled.

Artie had put Pinocchio over his shoulder, and Claudia could see the puppet's face, his nose never grew an inch.


End file.
